Spotlight On Writers
Glynn Sinclare
- Where, do you hail from?
I came from Limerick in southern Ireland when I was 17. I went on holidays to my sister in the UK and I have not lived as a Citizen of Ireland since then.
I met my husband the first day I worked and I was married for 43 years. Those 17 years in Limerick have contributed to the poet and the writer that I am. I delve into my memories of childhood stories from my father and grandmother. It is what I am. Irish is what I sound like. I was born Irish and I will die Irish. The fact is I spent a lifetime in the UK, it has given me an experience of the wider world. And eventually a good day’s pay for a good days work. Which I am grateful for.
- What is the greatest thing about the place you call home?
Limerick is a city known for its limericks and soda bread. It’s beautiful scenery, placed on the river Shannon as it is, with King John’s Castle fitting snugly into the Landscape. I attended a very good school. The Salesian Convent Limerick.
There was no television so we lived our life outside playing on the street, going for walks along the banks of the Shannon. The first book I wrote was The emigrants 2017 under my pen name Glynn Sinclare. I wrote about my childhood as well as coming to England.
My Home is in London UK. It is difficult to ask an immigrant to describe the difference between, who they are and where they live as one influences the other.
London is where I live, a beautiful city, my favourite places are the museums and kew gardens, walks along the Thames at Richmond or by London Bridge. It has so much culture with Art galleries, Theatre, the Ballet at Covent Garden, I could go on.
Depending on the weather I will head off on the underground to one or the other of my favourite places.
- What turns you on creatively?
As a child, I loved to listen to my father tell stories and read poetry. The Irish in general are very well read. As you know, there was no TV. When I was a child, listening to stories and plays on the radio, I passed many an hour on a winter’s night.
After a lifetime of work and the death of my husband, when I retired, I had space in my brain and time to follow my own path, be creative, open my heart to writing, expressing a lifetime of beliefs, thoughts, experiences and memories. Through my life I read all the English classics and moved on to the European classics. I bought all the black penguin classics books. I bought every poetry book that I could find on sales in charity shops.
Feeling deeply about something will trigger a poem. If I’m sad or upset I will write about it, it is a great outlet for one’s feelings. People reading your poems tend to think that they are about the poet. When a poet writes, he writes about his experiences and events that influence them. The world about them, happenings of great or small things. As humans we don’t sit alone in the world we are greatly influenced by the world itself.
- What is your favorite word, and can you use it in a poetic sentence?
I don’t know if there is one word that I would say is my favourite word. I sometimes take the O Bhéal five words a poetry competition based in Cork Ireland and I will write a poem and Yvonne Brewer Author will give me Three words to write a poem. I sometimes hear a word spoken or a word in a book that is part of a sentence that is very meaningful. I may not use it immediately but it will sit somewhere in my psyche and when I am ready it will drop into a poem.
- What is your pet peeve?
I’m not a person that has peeves as such but something will get to me, people making political decisions that are scary and so not right. I am not a political poet but sometimes it will get to me. Now that you’ve asked the question. I remember reading in Desiderata ‘Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit‘. How true.
- What defines Glynn Sinclare?
It is hard for one to judge oneself. I will define myself as being hard-working head down and get on with the task. I have been a company accountant, my last job was 18 1/2 years, I retired from there. My lifetime work has been for my family and I have been rewarded with wonderful children, grandchildren and now great grandchildren, what I do is for them. Then it becomes a joy for me. I do not let my age define me, if I want to do something. I get on with it. Not everybody will approve but in the end they will come around.
I found that people were the same all over the world. Food for their family, a roof over their head, education for their children and to be respected in their community is all they wished for.
Writing poetry and prose has immersed me in occupation. I have no time to grow old; I am too busy, now that the floodgates have opened. I have dipped my toe in the waters of creativity. I can see creativity all around. The one who paints the nails in imaginative ways, styles hair in exotica. Groups putting the world to right, craftsmen in their trade. Dentist creating a new smile. We are all creative; some have not recognised it as yet.
My heart soars, I have found an outlet for my creative being, I ask myself, could I be a poet, a writer. My writing has made me walk tall, be proud to own my work, call it work. That which fill my every thought, absorbs every fibre in my being.
I love the rhythm and music in a poem, the ebb and flow of verse. Descriptive words painting a picture. The way words portray love, anger, sadness or voice my opinion, spread the word and say what I feel in the gentlest or strongest way possible. Words like sparks exploding in the dark. Words back and forward like a bouncing game of volleyball played on the beach. Words strung together that satisfy and comfort my soul.
- To Dream - March 25, 2024
- The Heron’s Watchful Eye - November 30, 2023
- West Indian - July 27, 2023
